U.S. Pat. No. 3,824,487, issued on July 16, 1974 to C. J. Buczek et al, illustrates a variety of unstable ring resonator designs for high power lasers. These ring resonator designs employ mirrors rather than lenses in order to magnify and demagnify the circulating beam because of the high circulating powers involved. Various methods of enhancing the forward circulating beam power and suppressing the reverse circulating beam power are also disclosed in this patent. Suppression of the reverse mode is sought because both the forward and the reverse modes compete for the available gain power and hitherto it has not been possible in unstable ring resonators to employ the power contained in the reverse mode. Conventional means of coupling power out of a standard unstable ring resonator include the utilization of a scraper mirror in which the output power is reflected from the outer annular ring of the mirror and also the use of diffractive coupling around the edge of a small mirror. U.S. Pat. No. 3,500,240, issued on Mar. 10, 1970 to B. V. Kessler, illustrates the use of a coupling device for a stable ring resonator in which an output coupling device permits the unimpeded passage of a forward mode and reflects a reverse mode back into the gain medium parallel to and traveling the same direction as the forward mode.